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Deep Impact
Deep Impact is an American science fiction disaster film created in 1998. The film was directed by Mimi Leder, written by Bruce Joel Rubin and Michael Tolkin, and stared Robert Duvall, Téa Leoni, Elijah Wood, Vanessa Redgrave, Maximilian Schell, and Morgan Freeman. Synopsis Unless a comet can be destroyed before colliding with Earth, only those allowed into shelters will survive. Which people will survive? Plot On May 10, 1998, teenage amateur astronomer Leo Beiderman (Elijah Wood) discovers an unusual object near the stars Mizar and Alcor at a star party in Richmond, Virginia with his school's astronomy club. His teacher alerts astronomer Marcus Wolf (Charles Martin Smith), who realizes that the object is a comet on a collision course with Earth. Wolf tries to get the information out, but dies in a car accident while evading a truck before he can alert the world. One year later, MSNBC reporter Jenny Lerner (Téa Leoni) investigates the sudden resignation of Secretary of the Treasury Alan Rittenhouse (James Cromwell) and his connection to "Ellie". She discovers from Rittenhouse that Ellie is not a mistress but an acronym: "E.L.E.", for "Extinction-Level Event". On the ride back, she is intercepted by the FBI and brought before President Tom Beck (Morgan Freeman). Due to Lerner's investigation, President Beck advances the announcement of the grim facts to the media: the comet named Wolf-Beiderman (named after its discoverers Marcus Wolf and Leo Beiderman) is 7 miles (11 km) long—large enough to cause a mass extinction, and possibly wipe out humanity, if it hits Earth. The United States and Russia have been secretly constructing a spacecraft, called the Messiah, in orbit. They plan to use it to transport a team led by Oren Monash (Ron Eldard) that includes Captain Spurgeon Tanner (Robert Duvall) to the comet, so that its path toward Earth can be intercepted with nuclear weapons. Beiderman also speaks before his town about the error where the White House had stated that he had died with Marcus Wolf. After landing on the comet, the crew members plant nuclear bombs 300 feet (91 m) beneath the surface. When the bombs are detonated, the ship is damaged at the cost of Dr. Gus Partenza (Jon Favreau) and loses contact with Earth. Instead of being knocked off-course or destroyed entirely, the comet splits into two smaller rocks nicknamed "Beiderman" (1.5 miles (2.4 km) long) and "Wolf" (6 miles (9.7 km) long), both world-threatening. President Beck announces the Messiah crew's failure, declares martial law, and reveals that governments worldwide have been building underground shelters. The United States' shelter is in the limestone caves of Missouri. The US government conducts a lottery to select 800,000 ordinary Americans under age 50 to join 200,000 pre-selected scientists, engineers, teachers, artists, soldiers, and officials as well as two of every animal and the seeds of every plant life. Lerner and the Beiderman family are pre-selected, but Leo's girlfriend Sarah Hotchner (Leelee Sobieski) and her family are not. Leo marries Sarah to save her family, but the Hotchners are mistakenly left off the evacuee list. Sarah refuses to leave without them. A last-ditch effort to use Earth's missile-borne nuclear weapons to deflect the two chunks of the comet fails. President Beck reports on this and states that Beiderman will impact the Atlantic Ocean and that Wolf will impact western Canada which will create a cloud of dust that will block out the sun for two years. This in turn will destroy most life on Earth. Leo returns home looking for Sarah, but her family has left for the Appalachian Mountains and is trapped in a traffic jam on the highway. Leo catches up to the family using a small motorcycle in the Hotchners' garage. Sarah's parents urge Leo to take Sarah and her baby brother to high ground. Sarah still does not want to abandon her parents, but they convince her to let them go. Lerner gives up her seat in the last evacuation helicopter to her friend Beth (Laura Innes) who has a young daughter. She instead joins her estranged father Jason (Maximilian Schell) at their childhood beach house where they reconcile and remember happier times. The Beiderman fragment impacts in the Atlantic Ocean near Bermuda, creating a megatsunami. Lerner, Jason, Sarah's parents, and millions of other people perish as the tsunami destroys the Atlantic coasts of North America, South America, Europe, and Africa. The world braces for the impact of Wolf in western Canada. Low on fuel and life support, the crew of the Messiah decides to undertake a suicide mission with the remaining nuclear warheads in an effort to obliterate Wolf. After saying goodbye to their loved ones by video conference, the ship reaches the fragment and enters a fissure to blow itself up, which breaks Wolf into much smaller pieces that burn up in Earth's atmosphere. Leo, Sarah, and her baby brother survive as they are among the people that escaped the megatsunami. After the waters have receded, President Beck speaks to a large crowd in front of the United States Capitol building which is undergoing reconstruction. He urges the nation and the world to continue their recovery. List of Disasters *Comet Impact Cast *Morgan Freeman as President Tom Beck *Téa Leoni as Jenny Lerner, a News Reporter who descovers that the world is in an "Extinction-Level Event" which is being kept from the media. *Elijah Wood as Leo Beiderman, a teenager who discovers the comet. He and his family are selected to go into the underground bunker to survive. *Robert Duvall as Capt. Spurgeon "Fish" Tanner, an astronaut who captains the mission to destroy the comet. *Leelee Sobieski as Sarah Hotchner, Leo's love interest. Production The main character, Jenny Lerner (Téa Leoni), was meant to be employed at CNN but was changed due to it being "Inappropriate" for CNN to be featured in a bad matter. According to director Mimi Leder, he would have liked to have shown different aspects from around the world but there was not enough money left to do so. The main special effects editor for the film, Scott Farrar, said he was happy that they didn't as he thought it would ruin the main characters' stories. Soundtrack For list of soundtrack click here. Reception Deep Impact debuted at the North American box office with $41,000,000 in ticket sales. The movie grossed $140,000,000 in North America and an additional $209,000,000 worldwide for a total gross of $349,000,000. Despite competition in the summer of 1998 from the similar Armageddon (which cost almost twice as much as Deep Impact to make), Deep Impact was still a box office hit and was the higher opener of the two. Domestically, it became the highest grossing film directed by a woman and held that record for a decade until Twilight claimed the record in 2008. The film was praised by astronomers for being scientifically accurate. Category:Films